[OT] Five Planets aligning? End of the World?

[Darkness]

Heh. "The stars are right!"-type scenarios work better in D&D than they do in the real world, I think...

 

[William Ronald]

Sometimes, I think there are people who want the world to end because they view life as hopeless and the world as utterly corrupt. It takes more courage to confront the difficulties of one's life and the world than to hope for world wide destruction.

 

[Darkness]

... It takes more courage to confront the difficulties of one's life and the world than to hope for world wide destruction.

Definitely.

 

[pensiv]

the planets are aligning?! Take my wife, please!

 

[Umbran]

The greatest misconception about alignments is that you could draw a straight line between the Sun and each of the involved planets as you step outward toward the edge of the Solar System. In fact, the planets always appear to be in a "straight line" from our point of view on the Earth, because we're all revolving about the Sun in nearly the same plane.

True, but this is not what they are talking about when they say that the planets are aligned. Yes, the planets all tend to lie in the line of the plane of the ecliptic, but you don't say two planets are aligned when they are separated by 90 degrees of sky from the point of view of a terrestrial observer.

Planets are "aligned" when a number of them are all in a relatively small pie wedge of the plane of the ecliptic. The smaller the pie wedge, the greater the supposed importance of the alignment. Close alignments of this type are rare.

People tend to attach high significance to rare events. Even if the known influence of your cubical-neighbor's tex-mex lunch is greater than the gravitation effect of aligned planets, the alignment seems more important because that tex-mex lunch is common and mundane. The alignment is rare and unearthly.

I mean, really, which would you prefer to think about - planets or Joe belching next door?

 

[Chairman_Kaga]

It's the End of the World...

Hell, I know where I was New Year's Eve Y2K...on my roof with a six-pack of cervezas and a hibachi...waiting for the lights to go out...


what can I say, I'm a huge Armageddon buff. I don't care if it all goes boom as long as I get to see it.

 

[Castellan]

True, but this is not what they are talking about when they say that the planets are aligned. Yes, the planets all tend to lie in the line of the plane of the ecliptic, but you don't say two planets are aligned when they are separated by 90 degrees of sky from the point of view of a terrestrial observer.

Well, it certainly is true between two planets, though when you include three or more, a 90-degree (or even more) separation is technically considered an alignment. But I'll concede your point. Seeing two planets near each other makes the unwashed masses say, "Yikes! An alignment! We're all gonna die!"

Planets are "aligned" when a number of them are all in a relatively small pie wedge of the plane of the ecliptic. The smaller the pie wedge, the greater the supposed importance of the alignment. Close alignments of this type are rare.

Again, true, though when you include multiple planets, the alignment can take up 180-degrees of sky. How often is this going to happen that the planets are evenly-distributed enough that all of them are considered to be "in alignment"? Not often.

Close alignments are rare, happening roughly every 1 to 2 generations (i.e. 20 - 40 years). We've been fortunate to have two good ones in two years. Now that is much more rare... and cool!

People tend to attach high significance to rare events. Even if the known influence of your cubical-neighbor's tex-mex lunch is greater than the gravitation effect of aligned planets, the alignment seems more important because that tex-mex lunch is common and mundane. The alignment is rare and unearthly.

I mean, really, which would you prefer to think about - planets or Joe belching next door?

I dunno... I do like a good belch!

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Ahh... I remember it as if it where yesterday.

-=Fade to new Years 2000=-

We were all gathered around to watch the ball drop on TV. Seconds after it dropped I secretly hit the power button on the TV remote.

The look on those people's faces was priceless. Until they finally realized the lights in the house where still on.

Took the quickest of them a good 3 or 4 seconds.